Managing Soil Carbon in Europe: Paludicultures as a New Perspective for Peatlands - Soil Carbon: Science, Management and Policy for Multiple Benefits - page 303

2010b), and wildfire control by decreasing
fire incidence and its associated damage.
Rewetting substantially reduces green-
house gas emissions from peat oxidation
(Couwenberg et al ., 2011). Even more emis-
sions are avoided when the produced bio-
mass is used to replace fossil raw materials
and fossil fuels. Combining bioenergy gen-
eration and rewetting of drained peatlands
thus makes paludiculture an extraordinarily
cost-effective climate change mitigation op-
tion that can generate income both from car-
bon credits and from biomass production
(Tanneberger and Wichtmann, 2011).
Rewetting drained peatlands can also
support typical peatland flora and fauna,
which is often severely threatened due to
habitat loss. Within a few years after in-
stallation, many typical bog species had
spontaneously established in our first
1200 m 2 large sphagnum farming pilot
plot in north-west Germany, including
several red list plant species, an extremely
rare bog myxomycete ( Badhamia lilacina ,
second observation in Germany) and a
similarly rare bog spider ( Bathyphantes
setiger , fourth observation in Germany
since 1950).
Rewetted peatlands that were used for
intensive, drainage-based agriculture are
often nutrient overloaded, highly product-
ive and hardly ever harbour rare species.
By harvesting biomass in summer, signifi-
cant amounts of nutrients may be removed,
which improves habitat quality for charac-
teristic mire species of more nutrient-poor
conditions. In contrast, by collecting dead
biomass in winter, most nutrients are left on
site, and stable yields can be achieved over
long periods.
In sites designated for conservation,
paludiculture must be considered as a cost-
effective management option, instrumental
but ancillary to conservation (Wichtmann
et al ., 2010a,b).
Last but not least, paludicultures im-
prove rural livelihoods. They can provide
sustainable income from sites that have
been abandoned or where use took place
that degraded the land. Autumn and winter
harvest leads to more consistent employ-
ment throughout the year, whereas biomass

processing may create net added value and
generate additional jobs.

Perspectives

The area of drained peatlands in the world
amounts to some 500,000 km 2 (Joosten,
2010), with problems associated with deg-
radation occurring everywhere (Joosten
et al ., 2012). Practical experiences and model
calculations show that, in many cases, palu-
dicultures can compete effectively with
drainage-based peatland agriculture and
forestry, certainly when external costs are
adequately considered. Various conditions,
however, still hamper large-scale implemen-
tation.
Rewetting of peat soils often requires
investments over the entire hydrological
unit (polder, catchment area), as it is unfeas-
ible to rewet single plots surrounded by
fields that continue to be drained. Such re-
wetting will demand hydrological restruc-
turing, land reallotment and consolidation
of a similar scale as the huge projects that
drained the peatlands in the first place. Fur-
thermore, similar to drainage schemes, re-
wetting must be considered to be virtually
irreversible on the level of the individual
enterprise. Because of the important ecosys-
tem services generated for wider beneficiar-
ies, it is reasonable that peatland rewetting
projects are supported by central planning
and public financing. In the EU, however,
agricultural subventions still cause a sub-
stantial market distortion by subsidizing
drainage-based peatland agriculture; for
example, for biofuel production of maize
on peatlands, but not similarly supporting
paludicultures. There, the subsidy system
of the EU Common Agricultural Policy should
be modified to target mainstream support to
paludicultures (direct payments), to sharpen
cross-compliance requirements towards
protecting carbon-rich organic soils, to
introduce agri-environmental schemes and
agroclimate programmes for raising water
levels (in average to 20 cm below surface or
higher) and to enable long-term agreements
(cf. irreversibility) to secure peatland rewetting.